What Happens in Vegas
by nemain13
Summary: Because you asked, now with a second chapter. Love to all.... Mary and Marshall wake up in an unfamiliar hotel room with conspicuous gaps in their memory and lots of things around them that make them very, very nervous.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:**

**The idea for this one actually came from the line in "Good Intentions" about Jinx or Brandi running off with a penniless Elvis impersonator. The strangest cross-pollinations sometimes occur in my head.... I hope you enjoy this one. Please R&R.

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When love is not madness, it is not love. ~Pedro Calderon de la Barca

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Mary awoke face up in a large bed in a strange hotel room. That in and of itself was not a new occurrence for her. Her job often required her to stay in motels and hotels of varying quality. What _were_ new twists on the old familiar routine were the flocked red wallpaper and peeling gilt trim. She also couldn't quite remember waking up in a room with plaster cherubs smiling down from the molding before. None of that, however, was as distressing as the fact that she found herself possessed of the mother of all headaches and completely nude on top of the completely disheveled bedding.

The light filtering through the window blinds was like being punched hard in the face, and she closed her eyes and slapped her hands over them, or tried to.... Woozily, Mary realized that there were problems far greater than a simple hangover and lack of pajamas. She...could...not....raise...her...left...hand.... It was hanging over the edge of the bed, and a heavy weight seemed to be dragging on it, pulling it down. With an animal's reaction to restraint, Mary tugged as hard as she was able in her achy condition, and succeeded in freeing her trapped limb in such a spectacular fashion that it flopped across her torso. She panted a little with the effort, but was generally feeling pleased with herself until she noticed that when her hand and arm had sprung free, they had not come alone....

Draped across her naked stomach was an arm not her own. Taken aback, Mary stared. There was something familiar about it, about the contours of the hand at the end, the long fingers, the silver standard-issue Marshal service handcuffs binding her wrist to this one.... _Wait a minute...._

"What the fuck!!" Mary was awake now, even without her usual morning dose of caffeine. She unceremoniously yanked her wrist and the other arm along with it hard, drawing a groan of pain from the body attached to the other end of it, currently located somewhere on the floor underneath the bedspread, hidden from view except for one long leg and the arm currently in question. The leg had a scar running up the strong calf shaped like a long s-curve. _Oh no, oh please, I know that leg and that scar, too...._

Mary scooted over to the edge of the bed and lifted the bedspread with her eyes closed. She took a deep breath before opening her eyes. When she did, she saw the naked sprawling form of her partner, Marshall, sleeping peacefully on the hideous red and gold pile carpet. He had not awakened despite having his arm wrenched at such an awkward angle. In sleep, his face looked relaxed, calm, happy. _Haven't seen him looking this peaceful in a long time, _she thought to herself. She studied Marshall again as she frantically tried to remember how they had gotten themselves into this situation. Her eyes ran over his broad shoulders, and it was there that she noticed several small, short scratches that ran part of the way down his back. _What would have caused those? They almost look like they could have been made by... I mean they almost look like somebody...but they're fresh...Oh sweet tiny baby Jesus, NONONONONO._

Embarrassment turned to anger, and she leaned down and shook him roughly. "Marshall, get the hell up _right now_."

"Wha...? What is it? Witness in trouble?" Marshall was trying to sit up, but couldn't quite work out the mechanics of the motion with one hand chained to an angry and uncooperative Mary. He, too, clearly wasn't quite at his mental best this morning. He scrambled about for a minute inelegantly, and Mary pulled hard on the handcuffs. Marshall fell face down on the floor again, but when he turned his head to look up at Mary, his eyes were much clearer, and his expression was definitely not amused.

"What the _hell_?"

"Almost my words exactly."

"So this isn't your idea of a practical joke?"

"Marshall, you idiot, you know me. You've been my partner for three years now. Am I a practical joker?"

"Right. Sorry. Caught a little off guard here with the naked and handcuffed thing...."

"Yeah. I can see how that could happen," she said, glowering at him.

Marshall sighed and moved to a sitting position on the floor beside the bed. He leaned back against the bedside table. "So where are we? How did this happen? What do we know? And, perhaps most importantly, where the hell are the keys for these cuffs?"

Mary, still suffering from her hangover headache, wasn't ready to play this game, and she brought her hands back up to her face again. Marshall's hand, of course, came right up with her own, but she ignored it. Marshall opened his mouth to complain when he noticed something on her hand that simply left him without the ability to comment at all. He grabbed her hand and dragged it toward him, crawling onto the bed at the same time.

"Hey, look numbnuts, I know that apparently you had a high old time last night, but..." Mary stopped talking, stopped trying to shove Marshall back on the floor because his expression finally registered. He was staring at her left hand as if transfixed, his mouth hanging slightly open, his color actually turning slightly green. Mary looked at him worriedly trying to figure out what could possibly have affected him so strongly, and then she felt his fingertips trace her fourth finger, gently. _Wait...._

Reluctantly, she looked down to where Marshall's strong hands cradled her left one to see his fingers gently touching the gold band that circled her ring finger. She just stared, every synapse in her brain melting together, refusing to take in that tiny band of precious metal. Marshall's hand froze in midstroke on her own as if it had received an electric shock, and he slowly rotated their clasped hands. She saw on his left hand, wide and golden, a band that matched hers, a plain, unmistakable, unadorned symbol. Her fingers helplessly came up to touch it just as his had done.

"Mare..." he started and stopped a moment to take a deep breath, "correct me if I'm wrong, but does that look at all like a wedding band to you?"

Mary could not look away from the rings on their hands. The sight was hypnotic, like watching a rattlesnake preparing for a strike. "Uh-huh. I think we better figure out some answers and fast."

They were in Las Vegas for a law enforcement conference. Such events were notorious for turning raucous as the various branches met, mingled, and cut loose, especially in a place like this city. That alone, however, was not sufficient to explain how the two of them had wound up in what was undoubtedly the world's tackiest honeymoon sweet handcuffed together wearing matching wedding bands and nothing else. Mary just refused to even deal with those scratches running down Marshall's back. _One trainwreck at a time....._

Moments had passed and Marshall was now looking at the handcuffs. "You do realize," he said, "that these are yours, don't you?"

Mary, still trying to put together the events leading from the casino conference center to this crimson palace of kitsch, shot him a dirty look. "So are you trying to say that I handcuffed us together?" Even as the words were coming out of her mouth, a flash of memory came to her. The two of them eating dinner and drinking, going to a club at the casino and drinking, the two of them dancing in a very inappropriate manner for partners, and then....the two of them stumbling through the door of this ridiculous room, a bottle of champagne in hand, kissing passionately, clothing flying in all directions, hands seeking, finding, her pushing him down on the bed and grabbing the silver cuffs... _I handcuffed us together....why the hell did I handcuff us together?_ And after the handcuffs had been snapped on, binding them to one another...._Well, I'm never going to be able to look at __**these**__ the same way again...._

She could see that Marshall was having a similar memory flash. A faint blush was spreading across his cheeks, and he hunkered over the cuffs, twiddling with them as if he could open them by force of will.

"Um, yeah....so....keys. Where do you reckon the keys got off to?"

They had to get up together from the bed to search for the keys, and this was a delicate operation since at first they were trying to wrap pieces of bedding around themselves until they realized they'd need their free hands to look for the keys in the discarded clothing. Mary and Marshall looked at each other, and humor sparked in Marshall's blue eyes.

"I'll show you mine..."

"Idiot," she snorted with a laugh. "What makes you think yours is good enough to take in trade for all this?" She shook her hair from her face with a regal toss.

He leered at her and raised one eyebrow. "What makes you think I haven't seen it all already?"

"Stop. Stop it right there if you intend to live through this...."

He just started laughing. Mary punched him, but he gently caught her fist, shook his head.

"No more damage, okay?"

"Okay," she grumbled.

"Count of three?"

"Yeah. I'm counting, though."

He made a welcoming gesture with his hand. Mary counted to three, and they dropped their makeshift covering. Mary couldn't help but look. Marshall was a pleasure to look upon. He was lean, built with a swimmer's body, well-muscled and lovely. She saw the scar on his shoulder where he'd taken the bullet when things had gone so wrong with Horst. She saw the strength is his body, and her eyes slipped down him, assessing..... _My, my, my Marshall. Okay, that __**is**__ worth the price of admission...and you know, last night, he was really...quite...surprisingly...whoa, Nelly...stop that right now. Do Not Go There._

Marshall was also covertly studying his partner, and his pleasure in her naked beauty was hardly less than hers in his own. Mary had a naturally curvy body kept sleek and firm by the hard work of law enforcement, and the scars from her rough job were an additional enticement to him because they reminded him of the heart and drive beneath the external. _Going to have to think of nuns, _he thought, taking a deep steadying breath_. Nuns, Schrodinger's Cat, and carrying pi out to the 100__th__ place. Otherwise, she's going to know what I'm thinking and she's going to kill me because I'm chained to a savage golden goddess and can't get away. Maybe we won't find the keys and she'll do that...thing...again. _Marshall's mind disconnected for a moment as he relived a favorite moment from the night before, a use for handcuffs that they'd never even hinted at in any law enforcement seminar or training session he'd ever attended._ Wait, no...nuns, nuns...._

Despite the obvious distractions, they managed to find most of their clothing without bumping into each other too often or too deliberately. Marshall handed Mary her underwear with a grin, and she snatched them from him with a dangerous look. She found one of his socks on top of the dresser, and a moment later, he spied her pants, the target garment of their search, near the bathroom door. They moved over and pounced on them, each of them pushing their free hand in a pocket, Marshall emerging just a moment later with the tiny silver set of cuff keys in his hand.

He dangled them in front of her a moment.

"Marshall, just do it already, dammit."

"Funny. I seem to have this memory of you saying almost exactly the same thing to me in a completely different context and tone of voice last night...."

She growled low in her throat and swung, but he was already ducking the blow he knew was coming and started working on getting the cuffs unlocked. As soon as they were off, the two of them grabbed their various pieces of clothing and dressed.

Having their clothing on and the cuffs off helped to restore some of their sense of sanity, but it also made the situation they were in even more surreal somehow. There was no crisis to solve, and the two of them wound up sitting on the edge of the big, rumpled bed staring at the rings again after they were done putting on their shoes.

"Staring at them isn't making them disappear," Mary griped finally, and she stood up, and grabbed her jacket. "Let's get out of here and see if we can figure out what happened last night, or at least find some food while we think of what to do next."

"Yeah. You're right. Food would be good, I guess." Marshall sighed, ran his now ring-bearing hand through his hair, and followed her, taking up his coat as well. When he lifted his, a folded but official-looking document fell out of the pocket. He bent down to pick it up while Mary was already at the door working the locks to leave the room. He open it to see what it was since he didn't remember putting anything even remotely like it in his pockets.....

"Did you know this place is actually called, and I shit you not, the Love Shack? God, only in Vegas," Mary was laughing at the hotel's kitschy name she'd found written on the hotel check-out information on the back of the door when she turned around and saw the expression on Marshall's face.

"What is it? What's wrong?"

He didn't answer. Instead, he just waved the piece of paper in his hands toward her gently, his eyes huge, his color going pale as if he was going to pass out. Mary quickly came across the room and grabbed the certificate from him to see what had him so spooked. Her eyes scanned, paused, rescanned, paused, and then she looked up at Marshall and blinked twice in confusion.

"Marshall, this says we're really married!"

"I am aware of that, Mare, and the rings were a pretty good indicator, but thanks for checking in on my reading comprehension. I do appreciate it." His voice was barely a whisper.

Another flashback assailed Mary, this time of her and Marshall in a gaudy wedding chapel with an Elvis complete with white rhinestone-studded jumpsuit and scarf officiating, the two of them laughing hysterically, kissing, and swearing that nobody else would ever take care of them as well as they could take care of each other. She seemed to remember requesting that the Elvis minister sing "Jailhouse Rock" and tipping him quite heavily because it amused her and she knew Marshall would love the irony of two U.S. Marshals walking down the aisle to an anthem about prison.

Marshall had gone back to sit on the bed again, his head cradled in his hands.

"Marshall," she said tentatively, "do you remember...how do I say this...do you remember an Elvis?"

He looked up at her, new horror dawning in his eyes as his memory returned. "An Elvis? Yes...oh no, there was one, wasn't there?" He dropped his head back into his hands.

Mary laid the certificate down and dropped back down next to him on the bed. "So what do we do now?"

Marshall did not move, but he spoke. "Well, now, we file for an annulment, I suppose. In Nevada, you're allowed to do that if the parties involved can claim that the marriage lacked consent due to one or both parties involved being underage, insane, or intoxicated.... God, we've surely got grounds, because we may not be underage, but we hit both of the other two exactly on the mark..."

Mary tentatively put her hand on Marshall's back. "Marshall? It's going to be okay. Look, we'll get it taken care of, and nobody will ever know, okay? Everybody does something stupid when they're drunk at least once in their life. This one was yours, well...ours, although I have to say it's not my first time on the drunk-and-stupid merry-go-round. It's going to be alright. I promise."

Marshall looked up at her, and she saw for the first time the real pain in his eyes. _Oh hell, I hurt him. What did I say? How do I fix it? I don't want him to hurt...._

"Marshall?"

He took her hand, the one with the ring, between his, and he rubbed his thumb over the plain band, silent for another moment.

"This is not the way I saw my first marriage happening. I had...plans...I guess. Things that did not involve being so drunk I can barely remember it. Plans that did not include any Elvii whatsoever." His lips quirked briefly, but there was no real humor in the movement. _Plans that included a clever proposal, an engagement, your meeting my family. Plans that included you and me waking up the morning after peaceful and in love, ready to start a life together, not searching for handcuff keys in some horrible parody of a honeymoon suite. Plans that included a happily-ever-after, not a race to a the end. _

Mary's heart broke for him, for whatever romantic dream of Marshall's that had been destroyed by their actions. She turned her hand over in his to link her fingers with his, gold ring against gold ring. She put her other hand on his cheek, turned his face to hers. He still wouldn't meet her eyes, instead keeping his gaze focused on their hands.

"Marshall, this is just a bump on the road to those dreams. Don't think of it as something that has to mean those dreams have died." He was her partner. He was her best friend. Last night, he had been her lover. Today and for a time, he was her legal husband. She would take a bullet for him any day, and she loved him. She leaned in and she kissed him gently, softly, sweetly, offering what comfort she could.

Marshall's free hand came up to tangle in the hair at the nape of her neck, and he kissed her back, full of the longing he, a man of so many words, could not articulate even now that there were laws and precious metals binding them together. He slid his tongue against the seam of her lips, asking, and she parted them to allow him inside. Their linked hands continued to hold one another, fingers caressing. Memories of the night before, touches, sighs, pleasures given and pleasures shared, slid like a waterfall over both of them.

Finally, Marshall broke the kiss, leaning his forehead against hers, breath unsteady. He drew Mary into his arms and held her tightly. Mary rested her head on his shoulder and tried to calm the rapid beating of her own heart. A few moments passed and they pulled away from each other. She looked at Marshall, and he had a semblance of his familiar grin in place.

"Did you have that Elvis sing 'Jailhouse Rock' as we went down the aisle?" he asked.

"Knew you'd like that bit," she snickered.

"Oh yeah. That was the extra class the whole thing needed...." His grin faded. He reached out and touched her face gently, once, before lowering his hand. "Thanks, Mare. For what you said. I needed to hear it."

She caught his hand as it left her face and squeezed it. "You're my partner, Marshall. I'll always be here for you whenever you need me for whatever it is that you need, even when these rings come off, even when that piece of paper goes away. Nothing that has happened here changes any of that."

She dropped his hand, stood up, and headed to the door with Marshall following just behind. Mary spun, right hand on the doorframe, and looked him up and down, mischief in her eyes. "Don't buy that crap about 'What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas' though. I will give you hell about this for years to come, Marshall Mann...."

Marshall smiled with a deep, personal satisfaction, conscious of the glimmer of the band on her fourth finger and the weight of the matching one on his own, and said, "I'm counting on it." Then he shook his head slightly as if to clear it, and said, "Food, woman. Go. We have to find food...." and herded her out of the room while the gilded cherubs continued to smile down in undiminished serenity from their perches on the ceiling above.

Epilogue: – Two weeks later, two large mailer envelopes were waiting in Marshall Mann's mailbox. He tore open the envelope with the official seal of the State of Nevada first. Inside was the expected annulment decree. He couldn't help but feel a little saddened by it. He imagined Mary fervently opening hers when she got home, trying hiding it from her nosy family, and he knew he'd get a phone call from her later tonight. He sighed and put the document back in its envelope to be filed.

Taking up the second mailer, he looked at the return address with a growing feeling of dread and unease. The return address showed a guitar and wedding bells, and its address was in Las Vegas. He tore the strip across the top of the back of the rigid cardboard envelope and removed the contents to find a glossy 8X10 of Mary and himself in front of an altar and the Elvis they had only vaguely been able to remember. Mary had a little white tulle veil stuck on her head, no doubt borrowed from the chapel for the service. It looked hilarious with her black leather jacket and jeans.

Marshall laughed out loud because Mary was also holding her everpresent clutch piece, the Glock from her boot, in the way a normal woman would hold a bouquet. Neither of them had remembered that little detail. He wondered how the chapel had allowed them to do that without calling the Vegas PD.... _We must have shown a badge at some point. Or Mary was just being Mary, and they were all too afraid to do anything but get out of her way and pray for it to be over soon._

In the photo, their arms were wrapped around each other, and they were looking directly into the camera. Marshall was struck with how happy the expressions on both their faces were. He traced a fingertip over Mary's face in the photo before he put it down. He looked into the envelope again, and found a small piece of notepaper inside. A handwritten message read, "Here's your photo. We were very honored to have two U.S. Marshals get married in our little chapel. The 'Jailhouse Rock' thing was a hoot, and we were happy to do it for you both. Elvis got a real charge out of it. You two were a lot of fun, and anybody who looked at you could tell how in love with each other you were. Good luck in your new life together." It was signed "Helen Taylor, General Manager"

Marshall picked up the photo again and looked at it. He thought about Mary's words in the hotel, about the kiss afterward, about the note sent by Helen Taylor. Mary was right. He might not get his goal the way he had originally planned, but sometimes taking an alternate route allowed you to see some awfully interesting things, especially if it took you through Vegas. He grabbed his keys and his phone and headed back out the door. He had to go get a nice frame for this photo, and then he needed to go see his partner.

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**I hope you liked this one. It was fun to write. Let me know what you think.....**


	2. The Amazing Conclusion

**A/N:**

**Back by popular demand! All my reviewers were so kind and full of such author-love for this little effort that you made me absolutely squee. There were requests to see how this one turned out, the almighty "what happens next," and I had an alternative ending nagging at me, so here it is. I hope this makes you happy in return. And just in case you were wondering, there is no such thing as a Raph in this world of mine. (Disclaimer, since I forgot it on the first one: Not mine, darn it.)

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Mary had been straining for a sense of normalcy since she and Marshall had returned from the conference in Las Vegas. There were some things, though, that could not be unpacked from her travel bags and put away in a drawer, laundered and forgotten. The last two weeks had been...different. No matter how hard she had tried to return to a routine of flinging insults and protecting witnesses, she'd been conscious of Marshall in a way she'd never had to deal with before, conscious of the tilt of his head and the line of his throat when he was sitting at his desk searching for something on his computer, conscious of his long-fingered hands on the wheel when they were riding in the GMC headed to visit a witness, conscious of the warmth and strength of his body as he sat next to her at the conference table when they were having new witnesses sign the reams of paperwork needed to bring them into the program.

And then there had been the day they'd had to deal with those hitmen sent to take out one of Marshall's witnesses. When she'd pulled her cuffs off her belt after knocking one of the men down, preparing to restrain him as she'd done so often it was a habitual gesture, she'd suddenly paused, one knee in the middle of the wriggling bastard's back, looked up, and found Marshall's eyes staring at the cuffs before they flashed up to meet hers, combustible blue. She'd pulled her eyes away to finish the process of cuffing the criminal, but her hands had been shaking ever so slightly.... It had been small of her, to be sure, but she'd slammed the guy's head against the floor just a bit harder than necessary as he'd resisted her putting the cuffs on.

She was sitting alone in the office, having returned to take care of some paperwork she'd forgotten. She angrily wadded up yet another form she'd filled in incorrectly, and stalked over to the filing cabinet for another. She pulled open the drawer, stared at the folders for a moment without seeing the labels in her distraction, and slammed it shut again in frustration, just leaning against it.

_It can't be just the sex thing. I mean, okay, let's be perfectly honest since I'm having a freakin' conversation with myself here, the sex was pretty amazing, and we were both completely wasted at the time. I have, however, had pretty amazing sex before and walked away the next morning. Hell, I've had mindblowing monkey sex and kicked the guy out before the sweat was dry. Why can't I stop looking at Marshall this way? He's my partner. This is just...inappropriate. _

_I'm sure he is not interested in a repeat of Vegas, anyway. After all, think about his reaction when he woke up and found out he was married to me...._

That had been one of the things Mary had put the most effort into pushing into the deepest recesses of her mind and had the least success with, the look of absolute horror on Marshall's face when he'd seen the marriage license and realized they were married. Clearly it wasn't a fantastic situation for anyone concerned, but once she'd gotten home, a tiny little part of her...._okay, maybe not that tiny, but a girl has to have some pride..._had felt hurt that he'd been so sad to be married to her.

Mary stalked back across to her desk, sat down, and propped her feet up, idly twirling a pencil between her fingers. _It wasn't that I wanted to be married to him. I mean, Jesus, come on. Me? Married? I SO do not do the whole white-dress, happy homemaker thing. It's just...I had no idea he'd find the idea __of him and me so...repellant. _And in the deepest part of her most secret heart, the part she barely even would allow to whisper in the darkest of nights, she murmured, _And maybe I wonder what it would be like to be with a guy that had plans... what his plans for his wedding were like...bet Marshall's plans are good ones...._

She sighed and put her feet down resolutely. _Enough navel gazing. Time to go home. There's nothing for me to do here right now._ Her gaze strayed across the office to Marshall's empty desk, to the neatness of it that offset the clutter of her own, to the assortment of things he kept on it, his personal odds and ends. _I miss him, _she thought. _Whenever he's not around, I just...miss him. Why didn't I ever notice that before? I wish things could just go back to the way they were...._

Mary scanned herself out, headed to her forlorn purple Probe, and drove to her house. As of this morning, it was empty and would be empty for the next week. Her sister and mother had taken themselves off for what they were calling a Spa Holiday to celebrate Jinx's four-month anniversary on the wagon. Mary had been grateful for their absence as it meant a decrease in the drama of her homelife, but tonight, she could have used the company.

She thought of looking up one of her dial-a-dates in her trusty black book, but somehow even the wildest of the headboard shakers on her emergency list didn't sound worth the effort. Besides, she'd felt strange lately even considering sleeping with one of those recyclable, interchangeable men. _He'd laugh at me, I guess. It feels like cheating. And anyway, they haven't really sounded...right.... It's like I'm hungry for something, but I can't figure out what I want,_ she thought, _speaking of which..._

She headed into her kitchen, intending to use chocolate as a panacea when the stack of mail on the kitchen island caught her eye. There were the usual catalogs, circulars, and bills, but mixed in were two large flat mailer envelopes. She was shocked to see that her overly inquisitive family hadn't ripped into them already. _I guess the last time I put the fear of God into them about that, it must have worked then. Good. _She looked at both of them, and opened the one with the official-looking seal first. _This must be our annulment decree. _Inside was a simple piece of paper ending a very complicated situation.

She looked at the decree, reading it line by line. The wording was simple, the print crisp and clean in that way that computer-generated documents have. _It's over, then. Marshall is free to chase that beautiful dream, and I'm free to...to..._ She had no way to complete that sentence. What was it she was free to do, to be now? She lay the decree down, and she crossed her arms over her torso, rubbing as if she were cold. It felt like loss; it felt like something had, in some way, died.

She forced a smile she didn't truly feel at the silly sentimentality of the thought and shook her head. She took up the second envelope from the island and ripped it open, mind still worrying the bits and pieces of her musings like a puzzle that would not fit together correctly. She slid the contents onto the work surface, and looked at what came out in shocked surprise.

The photo of her and Marshall standing in front of the Elvis made her laugh deeply, truly, freely for the first time in two weeks. Marshall and she had only been able to piece together the minimum about the ceremony, but here it was in all its gory detail in front of her. _Why the hell do I have that stupid thing on my head? Oh, look! I was right about the rhinestones on the Elvis, but I completely did not remember that he had a cape, too..._ The sight of the gun "bouquet" in her hand sent her into fresh gales of laughter, and she thought to herself, _If I ever really do get married again, I am SO doing that instead of a handful of crappy dead plants. _Her laughter subsided as she lay the photograph down and lifted the slip of paper that had fallen out with it to read it. The handwritten note was from the Elvis who had married them, and read as followed:

"Lil Darlin' (Mary snickered uncontrollably), I have to say I've had a lot of requests for a lot of songs in my time here at the chapel, but nobody ever asked me to sing 'Jailhouse Rock' for them. Then again, I've never married a bride with a gun before either. You and your new hubby were a one of a kind pair. We had a blast with y'all, and everybody here was so happy to see two people who were so well-matched and so much in love come in to get hitched. We hope you'll come see us if you're ever back in town." It was signed with an eloquent and looping capital E.

Mary looked back at the photo again. She and Marshall were holding onto each other, and they looked so happy, so...._so much in love. I can understand how Elvis was confused by it. Hell, if I were looking at this picture and hadn't been present for the morning after, I guess I could be confused by it, too. _She picked up the picture again, tapping her fingertips against the edge. _I'm confused by it right now..._

She sighed and took the photo and annulment decree to her room, took down a large wooden lockbox from the top of her closet and opened it. Inside were things she preferred to keep private from everyone. It was her own personal treasure chest. She sat down on the bed with it since she was sure she was alone, and she opened the lid looking in at the contents.

_Here are all the little fragments of my life, all the things I value the most, am most proud of, all in one box, all hidden in the dark in the closet except for when I'm sure nobody can see them. What the hell does this say about me? _

She ran her fingers over the bundles of letters her father had sent her, the ribbons binding them together faded and worn with her handling. The small trophy for MVP of her high school basketball team was tucked in, too. Her diplomas in their protective covers were at the bottom. Her first badge, a photo of Jinx, Brandi, herself, and her dad before he'd left them, a birthday card that Marshall had gotten everybody at the office to sign for her even though she'd threatened to shoot him for it, these were among the things that she had carefully hidden away in this safe place. She took from the box one item, and held it in the palm of her hand, considering it quietly. She was so lost in thought that she never heard the soft knock at the front door or the door to her house open and close.

Marshall had decided to forgo buying the frame because the more he thought about the photo, the more he wanted to see Mary. Wanted wasn't exactly the word. It was more a longing, a need. The past two weeks had been hard ones for him. He'd been trying to give Mary space, trying to behave the way he felt that she wanted, but it hadn't been easy to pretend that nothing had happened. She'd pulled away from him, too. There'd been no late night calls, no dinners after work, no nights spent crashing on his pull-out bed, and he had felt the loss of those things like a physical blow.

There had been other challenges as well. As aware of her as he'd always been, he now had memories of what it was to taste her, touch her, feel her moving with him, and despite his best efforts to the contrary, there were times when his wayward mind and rebellious body conspired against him. He wondered if she knew how often he'd caught the scent of her shampoo in the conference room and tightened his hands around the edge of the table or brushed against her shoulder in the elevator and thought of simply backing her against the wall of the elevator and doing....things.....

He didn't know exactly what she'd been doing in her spare time since she hadn't been doing much with him, and that was driving him crazy. Had she gone back to her steady diet of disposable men?

Marshall pulled up in front of her house and was relieved to see her tired old car parked out front alone. Brandi's car was gone, and there was no other vehicle. _She's alone then. Good. Maybe we can talk this thing through. We've got to reach a balance of some kind. It's making me crazy._

He locked the truck, headed up the path, and knocked softly on the door. When there was no response, he stood for a minute before knocking again. Again, nobody came to the door. Puzzled, he took out his key to her door and let himself in. _Two weeks ago, I wouldn't have felt weird about doing this...._

The lights in the living room were on and her jacket was thrown carelessly across the back of the couch, so somewhere Mary was home. He looked down the hallway toward her bedroom, and he saw lights there as well. He walked quietly down the short passageway and peered around the frame of her bedroom door. What he saw made his heart flutter painfully.

Mary was sitting in the middle of her bed with a large carved wooden lockbox open near her hip. She'd pulled out various items from it. He saw a Marshal Service badge, battered and worn, missing its pin. He saw a trophy of a female basketball player, a packet of tattered letters. What held his eyes and made him want to grab her up in his arms, though, was the golden wedding band she had in the palm of her hand. He knew it all too well; he had its mate in a dresser drawer at home and in the past two weeks, he'd taken it out to run sentimental fingers over it numerous times.

He continued to watch her, barely even drawing breath, as she turned the ring over in her fingers and then slipped it on the fourth finger of her left hand. She picked up a photograph that lay amongst the other artifacts of her life on the bed, and ran the now ringbearing hand gently over its surface. He saw a tear come to her eye, and she put down the photo and wiped at it angrily.

"Idiot," she muttered. "Time to stop this emotional crap and pull yourself together. How lame are you? If it's over, it's over. It's...it's what you wanted. Dammit, it was never even a real marriage. It was a drunken mistake. It was sure hell clearly what he wanted, too, clear he couldn't stand even the idea of being married to you, so...." He saw her twist at the ring savagely.

_If I just saw what I think I saw and heard what I think I heard....Time to be brave, Marshall. If you were ever going to, now's the time. _

Marshall took a deep breath and stepped fully around the doorframe. "Mare?"

She looked up from where she was twisting the ring on her finger with shock on her face, and only the fact that she recognized Marshall's voice kept her from going for her gun. "Jesus, Marshall! What the hell! You scared me to death!"

He smiled a little and entered the room slowly. "I did knock, you know, twice...."

Mary had plunged her hand underneath a pile of papers. "Must not have heard you. You could have just called me."

"And miss watching you jump like that? Fat chance."

She snorted, still watching him warily, trying to figure out what he'd seen from the door, trying to figure out how to get him to go away so she could get the damned ring off her hand before she died of embarrassment.

"Um...are you thirsty? There's stuff in the kitchen. You can help yourself while I clean this junk up. I'll be there in just a minute, okay?"

Marshall found her attempt at diversion amusing. "That's okay. I'm not thirsty. Just do whatever you need to do." He moved over to sit next her on the bed, noticing her squirm with discomfort.

"Ookaay...." Mary started putting items in the box one-handed, keeping her right hand hidden underneath an old photo. Marshall snagged the photograph, and Mary plunged her hand beneath the unmade covers of the bed. Marshall looked at the picture of Mary in a basketball uniform, and he smiled at the young warrior he saw there. Mary was grabbing items from the bed rapidly and throwing them in willy-nilly until nothing was left. Marshall continued to scrutinize the image he held, and then he laid it carefully on top of all her other treasures.

Mary was fidgeting fiercely, the hand with its incriminating golden band clenching and unclenching beneath the bedspread. "Are you sure you don't want something from the kitchen? I have chocolate chip cookies.... You know you love chocolate chip cookies." Her tone was enticing, seductive, and Marshall wanted to laugh. Instead, he decided to end her misery. He had a sure-fire plan to bring the hidden hand out from its hiding place.

He leaned close to her, deliberately invading her personal space, looked at her with a cocked eyebrow and a leer. "Do you know what I love more than chocolate chip cookies?"

Her eyes went wide, slipped down to focus on his mouth, and flicked back up to meet his again. She shook her head without saying anything. Her lips parted ever so slightly. _I'm so hungry. This is what I've been hungry for,_ Mary thought.

_Well, that wasn't the reaction I was expecting...._ Marshall had expected her to sling an insult or innuendo, push him away from her, something that would start a tussle and allow him to grab her hand and reveal the gold band without revealing his own spying in the hall. _As the old saying goes, though, When in Rome...._

Marshall closed the remaining distance between them and brushed his lips against hers softly, once, twice, a third time, bringing his hands up to cup her face. He felt her hands slide up to clutch at his shoulders and she made a little noise, of happiness or distress, he couldn't be sure, but she was kissing him back with a sudden desperation that woke up every sleeping memory of that crazy night between them. Suddenly, she broke away from the kiss and placed her right hand on his chest to push for distance between them.

"Marshall, don't. We can't....I mean, let's not get carried away and do something else we'll regret." _Because I can't live with it if what's between us gets any more damn broken than what it is right now, can't lose you any more than what I already have...._

Marshall captured the hand she'd placed against his chest with his own, and lifted it to his lips, careful to kiss her where the ring touched her skin. "I agree. Let's not live with regrets. With could have beens. With what ifs. They'll eventually drive you crazy."

Mary was trying to pull her hand out of his, and she was actually blushing. Mary Shannon, she who could not be shaken, she who had used phone sex as an interrogation tactic, was actually blushing.

"Marshall, I ...um...I....Look, dammit. I know you didn't want to marry me, know that the whole idea of waking up hitched to the fucking nightmare that is me and my life turned you green. I'm sorry about the thing in Vegas. I am more sorry than you will ever know that you came in here and found me with this ring on my hand like some kind of psychopath from hell, and I wish I had an explanation for that, but I just...well, don't. Can't we please find some way to go back or get around it? I miss you. I don't like it when we're not together. I don't like it when I can't call you, can't go to your house, can't be with my best friend. Tell me what to do to fix this...." She trailed off, out of words for her shattering emotions. She stared at his face, hope written in every line of her own.

Marshall's heart was soaring. He was still holding her hand in his own, and he looked down at the glittering band that circled there.

"Well, I think it's far too late to go back," he said softly. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mary's face fall. "But it's never too late for people who care about each other to find new ways to show that." He slipped the gold band off her finger and rolled it between his own, releasing her hands.

"When we were in Las Vegas, you told me that you would always be here for me whenever I needed you for whatever it was that I needed. Did you mean that?"

Mary looked at him in surprise. "You have to ask? Of course I meant it. You're my partner, Marshall, my best friend. Hell, you're closer to me than my own family. I mean I know I don't say it very often, but you know how I feel about you."

He took a deep breath and he nodded. "You know what that sounds an awful lot like?" He reached into the box and pulled out the photograph of the two of them holding one another, drunk but joyous, surrounded by the accoutrement of marriage, Elvis smiling benevolently in the background. He tapped the image.

"It sounds an awful lot like this, if you ask me." He smiled softly and reached out to stroke her cheek.

Mary looked at him with confusion. "Marshall, what.... I don't understand."

_Leave it to Mary to need it clear and plain. Leave it to the two of them to do it completely in their own way once again. _He'd planned this moment in his mind a million times, seen it happening in a restaurant, in the moonlight, in his livingroom, even in the office after everybody else was gone. He'd never imagined he would be putting his entire heart on the line sitting on her unmade bed clutching the cheap gold band from their previous Vegas wedding on the eve of the annulment of their first drunken foray into wedded bliss. He'd never imagined he'd be this tongue-tied, this unable to say four words for fear that, despite the fact she'd been so clearly wishing when he'd come in, she would hate him, run from him, leave him with nothing but ashes and dust.

_I came here tonight to take back the happiness I saw in that photo, to claim what she and I both deserve. Please let me be right...._

Marshall laid down the photo and took her hand in his again. "I'm saying that I don't want us to be apart anymore, either, Mary. I want us to be together all the time. I'm saying that I think the people at the wedding chapel were right. I'm saying that I want the chance to lie down next to you every night and wake up next to you every morning in peace and love. I'm saying I want to spend the rest of my life with my best friend. Will you marry me, Mare?"

Her mouth was hanging open and she looked as shocked as though she'd just been slapped. "But...but...you didn't want to marry me...you were so...so...green, couldn't stand the thought of it! Marshall, I saw it! And Marshall, I'm not exactly Today's Bride material. We both know it!"

Marshall tried not to be discouraged; he hadn't expected this to be easy, and she hadn't said no. "What I said was that I had plans and that waking up hungover, married, and chained to somebody in Vegas wasn't really a part of them. Not that some of it wasn't fun while we were there...." he smirked a little and then his expression became serious again.

"As for you not being marriage material, maybe you're not the girl in the fluffy white dress...." She was looking down, and he put his hand under her chin to force her to meet his eyes. "But you're the only woman I will ever want, Mary Shannon. In jeans and a leather jacket, with a Glock in your hand, you were the most beautiful bride I ever saw. Marry me. Be my friend. Be my partner. Be my lover and my wife."

Mary, the woman who never cried, the woman who sneered in the face of death and made grown men tremble with fear, felt a tear slip down her cheek and she nodded.

"Yes?" Marshall said, his heart racing, his hands sliding up and down her arms. "Is that a yes? 'Cause I'm going to want to hear you say it like a verbal contract sort of thing here...."

She smacked at him gently, "Idiot. Yes. Okay? Yes. God help us both, but yes. I will marry you."

He pulled her into his arms and they were laughing and kissing, mouths meeting and pressing together, the tang of salt from tears mixing in. He broke the kisses long enough to take the Vegas wedding band and slip it solemnly back on her ring finger. They looked at it on her hand again a moment together, and she reached the hand with the ring on it up, slid it into his hair, and pulled him back down into a long, deep kiss, all humor gone.

When they woke up the next morning, they were once again chained together with Mary's handcuffs, but neither one of them was overly concerned about finding the keys.

Epilogue –

It was Marshall's turn to put the kids to bed. Matthew and Elizabeth, age 6, were being their normal charming selves, which had meant that a fifteen-minute battle raging across most of the living room and part of the kitchen had ensued before Marshall had simply grabbed one under one arm, one under the other and carried them bodily up the stairs to their rooms. "Why twins? What did we do to deserve twins?" he muttered, only half-kidding.

The twins were in Matthew's room tonight waiting on their story. When they'd heard Marshall muttering, they'd called a guarded truce. Being survivors, they were adept at reading the atmosphere, knew the warning signs, and had an uncanny sense of just how far to push both their parents before getting punished. Someday, Mary always said, they were either going to make wonderful little Marshals or fantastic little felons.

Marshall came in and sat down on the cowboy bedspread. "What story have you two decided to hear tonight?" _God, please, please, please not the Dr. Seuss again. I can take anything but rerun number 1000 of the Dr. Seuss. I will go beg Mary to shoot me if it's Dr. Seuss...._

Matthew cut his eyes at his sister, and she gave him a tight nod that had to have been genetically gifted to her from her mother. "We want to hear the story of the two wedding pictures on the mantle."

Marshall looked up in surprise. "What? What did you say?"

Elizabeth impatiently gestured. "There are two pictures of you and Mom on the mantle. In both of them you are kind of dressed in wedding clothes. In both of them there is a weird man in a fancy suit in a place that looks kind of like a funny church. In both of them, Mom is holding her gun. In one of them there are a bunch of other people, too, Uncle Stan, Aunt Brandi, Gramma and Nana and Papa but not in the other one. It's like a mystery. Matthew and I have been trying to figure it out. Tell us the story."

Marshall ran a hand through his hair, and turned when he heard a noise at the door. Mary was leaning against the frame of the Matthew's room with a wicked little grin on her face. "Yeah, Dad. Tell them the story. Go right ahead. I can't wait to hear this one, either."

* * *

**Okay this is the end. I hope you like where it went. Yes, Mary was a little softer than usual in this one, but I hope you think she was still in character. I believe, firmly, that there is going to come a day where she's going to lay down her barriers and let him in. I think it's going to be lovely.... Hit the button and tell me what you think.  
**


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